Joe and I had both heard mixed things about Kashmir before the trip and during the five day stretch between New Delhi and our flight to Srinagar, the largest city in Jammu and Kashmir. If you Google “Kashmir”, the first thing you’ll see is a series of news stories about soldiers, police, or militants killed in recent days. Had we been too eager in heading off to a place like this, even if it is beautiful? It was a fair question to ask ourselves as we boarded the plane out of Delhi. I had been aware of the conflict in Kashmir since I’d learned about it in school a long time ago, but when we were booking it at the office in Delhi, I didn’t think twice about it. Some people we’d met said they wouldn’t go to Kashmir if you paid them, and others were just confused about why we’d head to that region. In a large country like India, there are also inter-state stereotypes at play that we learned to take with a grain of salt over time.
We were the only Westerners on the flight to Srinagar, but by this point it already seemed rather commonplace. I had seen very few foreigners so far on the trip, and most of the other tourists we’d seen were other Indians exploring the country. This would hold true for the rest of the trip, and it added an authenticity to our travels in India that made it especially unique.
It was raining in Srinagar when we landed, and we were greeted at the airport by Omar, the manager of the houseboat we were staying on for the next couple of nights. We took a taxi to Dal Lake, and then a small boat across to the houseboat. The “houseboat” is really just a stationary barge that floats but has no power of its own.
The houseboat was amazing. Both inside and out were extremely intricate wood carvings. Our room was simple, but it was everything we needed for a couple days of unwinding outside of the bustling cities we’d been traveling around in the previous days. The first dinner, as with the rest of the meals on the houseboat, were simple and delicious. Home cooking at its finest.
Joe and I weren’t really sure what we were going to do after Kashmir (you can see a theme here). Planning on the fly had worked out well so far, but it was more difficult in Kashmir where they didn’t allow prepaid SIMs (because of the militant activity) and where we didn’t have internet on our houseboat. Not long after we arrived, Omar was trying to get us to go on a hike in the surrounding area. We’d heard great things about the hiking, but neither of us felt well equipped or in shape to do a proper hike in the foothills of the Himalayas. I’d also had a tough time with the altitude when I went up to 15k feet in Peru last year, and was reluctant to put my body through a hike that went up to 19k feet. Still, we were in the area, and it seemed a shame not to do something.
The next morning we realized the true beauty of Dal Lake. In the rainstorm the night before it wasn’t clear what a majestic place this was, but the blue skies and beautifully cool weather the next day soon made us realize why Kashmir came so highly recommended. We ate breakfast on the roof of the houseboat and took in the scenery.
By this point we had a clearer idea of what we were willing to spend on the trek and negotiated a rate with Omar that was within our budget but would still be and experience worth having. We finalized the details of the trip and then went out on a day trip cruise of the Dal Lake area.
The next morning we packed up and drove an hour and a half to meet our guides for the hike. There were four guides along with us for the trek, some of whom spoke broken English, but pretty minimally.
We spent the next two nights at 10k feet in the Himalayan foothills near Gangabal Lake. The whole area was beautiful, especially our campsite and the two lakes we hiked to on the second day. From the hiking, to the food, to playing cards with our guides, enjoying two enormous camp fires, and spending a lot of peaceful time outdoors, it was an incredible three days.
We returned to the houseboat for a final night before flying out to Amritsar. Our week in Kashmir coincided with the end of Rammadan, and our last day on Dal Lake was the final day of fasting. As a predominantly Muslim state, prayers were recited from the mosques’ minarets all night, and we went to sleep amid the sounds from several mosques echoing around us.
We flew out of Kashmir the next day to the Punjab city of Amritsar and a return to the heat and chaos of central India. Kashmir was amazing, and it was more proof that it’s impossible to know a place until you’re on the ground and meeting the people there. Yes, there are some dangerous ongoings, but the vast majority of people are living normal, simple lives, and we were lucky to see a sliver of that experience during our time there.